1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cell contour formation apparatus and a method of the same to extract a contour representing the shape of each cell from a cell image acquired by imaging using, for example, a bright field microscope, and a storage medium to store a computer-processible cell contour formation program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, in medical and life-science fields, various cell analyses using cell images photographed through a microscope have been conducted. For example, in the studies of stem cells such as ES cells and iPS cells, operations generally performed for the elucidation of cell differentiation mechanisms and the discovery and development of drugs include observation of cell differentiation processes and morphological feature changes from cell images photographed in a time-series manner, and investigation of differences in cell characteristics.
Regarding the analyses of cell images, automation of troublesome operations such as the screening of individual cells that has heretofore been visually performed is becoming possible by the application of image processing technology such as image recognition. If this image processing technology is applied, it is possible to calculate individual cell contours included in cell images and grasp cell morphological information and populations.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2004-54347 has disclosed a technique regarding cell contour extraction to analyze cell morphological transformation for the purpose of functional analysis of DNA. The technique used in cell contour extraction is a technique for forming a cell contour from a phase difference image photographed by a phase contrast microscope and a fluorescent image photographed by a fluorescence microscope. More specifically, according to the disclosure in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2004-54347, first, an image difference is found between a phase difference image and an image obtained by the application of a close-opening filter to the phase difference image, and edge information is thereby created. A gradient vector flow (GVF) is created on the basis of the created edge information. Then the fluorescent image is digitized to create an initial contour. Finally, under the restrictions of the GVF, the snakes (dynamic contour) method is applied to the initial contour to form a cell contour.